Conventionally, it is general practice to take a medicine orally with water or plain hot water. However, it is difficult that patients, particularly elderly ones, who have difficulty in taking a medicine using such water or plain hot water. When a medicine in dosage form of powders, granules, capsules, tablets and the like is used internally, patients and the like do not swallow adequately, and then choke or remain such a medicine in the oral cavity, with the result that they not only do not gain enough curative effect but also sometimes feel discomfort.
Consequently, the way of grinding tablets, capsules and the like into meal or of mixing a medicine with food, such as boiled rice, miso soup, and juice, is employed to take a medicine. This is time-consuming and troublesome way. Furthermore, owing to grinding tablets, capsules, and the like into meal, a release time for medicinal components could not be controlled and a taste of such a medicine could not be masked, and then the desired effect of a medicine is sometimes not obtained.
In order to resolve these problems, the applicant proposed a swallowing assistive beverage with low calorie and sugar-free including a starch adhesive, such as agar and carrageenan, mannitol and the like and having the predetermined strength of jelly, which was granted a patent (c.f. see Patent Gazette No. 3257983).
The swallowing assistive beverage patented is applicable to take medicines in various dosage forms, does not hinder medicinal benefits, and does not inhibit the metabolism of insulin; accordingly the swallowing assistive beverage is well-suited to persons with dysphagia mentioned above, particularly those with chronic diseases, produces no side effects, and is usable with a sense of security for patients who supervene diabetes or the like.
However, the inventors, as the result of giving further consideration to the swallowing assistive beverage mentioned above, found room for further improvement therein.
The swallowing assistive beverage mentioned above, having also the function of wrapping a medicine, acts as an agent to mask a taste and a smell of ordinary medicines properly. On the other hand, the swallowing assistive beverage, due to having weak acid, sometimes accelerates the dissolution of a medicine in the oral cavity which includes bitterness, particularly powders, granules and the like including a basic material, such as an amino group, which has a nitrogen atom in chemical structure, and then it emerged that the swallowing assistive beverage does not have the enough effect of bitterness-masking yet.